Elliot Quest Indie Game Review

Elliot Quest: 8 Bit Retro Adventure Game Review

Over Thanksgiving weekend I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a great pixel art adventure/RPG by Ansimuz Games called Elliot Quest. Elliot Quest is an open world platformer is a true throwback to games like Zelda 2 “The Adventure of Link”, Kid Icarus, Faxanadu and Act Raiser.

Our story begins with Elliot, a young man investigating the mysterious disappearance of his wife. After trying to take his own life, Elliot discovers that he has been put under the demon “Satars” curse which prevents him from dying and begins to consume Elliot’s vitality. These unfortunate events kick-start your journey to destroy the Satar, find a cure, and reunite with your wife.

Game Features:

Elliot Quest has many well done nostalgic features that keep things entertaining and challenging at the same time. One of the biggest being the games controls, which are simple to grasp yet difficult to master. Throughout play, you’ll be dodging various floor traps, projectiles, and enemies from all angles. Control mastery is a must! Combat is pretty casual as you can overcome many enemies with enough patience and a few well placed arrow shots. You will encounter 16 boss battles along the way, each with their own unique animations and challenging behaviors.

As you progress you will level up and add skill points into 5 different attributes that affect how your hero will perform. Character customization gets really exciting once you get magical attacks and new weapons. These help keep the combat interesting, granting you different approaches when battling enemies. What would an adventure game be without loot right? Along the way you will find tons of gems and money, which you can use to buy items from shop owners located across the map. You can also “chain” attacks, which cause enemies drop more items.

Elliot Quest features a catchy score written by Michael Chait. The music fits right in with other adventure games of the NES era, setting a familiar adventurous tone that will have you humming for hours after you’ve put the controller down.

Exploration:

Elliot Quest is very much open world. Between the 5 dungeons for you to explore, you will be able to freely travel a world map which give you the freedom to go wherever you want. I think this is an important design choice which helps retain the retro game aesthetic. I feel that modern games often do too much hand holding, making many “open world” games, end up feeling very linear. Elliot Quest encourages you to explore and re-explore areas as you progress through the game for additional items and loot.

Overall:

Elliot Quest is a nu-classic in the adventure/rpg genre that tips it’s hat to the retro classics while still having its own identity. Fans of platformers and puzzles will really enjoy Elliot Quests challenge and pace, while fans of rpgs will love leveling up, exploration, and finding items.

Overall Score

Ralph is an avid retro gamer and indie game aficionado from New York. NES titles like Contra, Metal Gear, Shatterhand, and Metroid were the first games he ever played and he's been hooked ever since. In his free time he plays guitar, steam games, and writes for RETRONUKE.com. His Twitter handle is @ralph_durso where he tweets about his favorite indie games.

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